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Wage-Hour Employment

Wage and hour employment

On August 7th, 2006, Beasley Allen filed a lawsuit for approximately twenty-five hundred former and current Dollar General store managers in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, alleging that the company intentionally misclassified them as “executives” in order to avoid paying the store managers overtime pay, a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The firm also filed a second lawsuit in the same United States Federal Court by a single Plaintiff, Cynthia Richter, alleging the same claims but seeking certification as a “collective action” for all persons pursuing claims for overtime pay for Dollar General store managers. Both of these lawsuits were filed in the Federal Court in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, because the Federal Court system has established a single “Multi District Litigation” Court to handle all of these FLSA claims against Dollar General. The Federal Court system often establishes an “MDL” Court in order to efficiently manage multiple lawsuits filed against a single Defendant.

A similar lawsuit by store managers employed by Family Dollar Stores was tried to a jury verdict last April in Tuscaloosa and resulted in a $38 million verdict for the store managers. That case is currently before the Trial Court on a Motion for New Trial filed by Family Dollar. Recently Beasley Allen filed, two very similar lawsuits against Fred’s on behalf of the assistant store managers, one in the United States District Court located in Columbus, Georgia, and a second lawsuit filed in conjunction with a Birmingham law firm in Federal Court in the Northern District of Alabama. Each of those cases seeks “certification” of a nationwide “collective action” for all assistant managers for misclassifying them under the “executive exemption” of the FLSA.

The “executive exemption” under the FLSA allows companies to pay store managers a set salary and avoid paying them overtime in the event a store manager works more than forty hours. However, the exemption also mandates that managers must actually do management duties as their “primary duty” as opposed to “manual labor.” It’s very clear that store managers of the discount retail stores like Dollar General don’t qualify as executives.

All of these complaints against Family Dollar, Dollar General, and Fred’s allege that these companies forced the managers to work from sixty to eighty hours of manual labor a week as their “primary duty” and that they spent as little as ten percent of their actual time performing management duties, which results in “free labor” to the companies. “Labor cost is reduced, the companies’ highest expense, resulting in increased profits, all on the backs of the store managers,” said Dee Miles, in addition, “the FLSA is specifically designed to prevent this very scheme where these companies are trying to cheat working folks out of a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work,” said Miles.

The companies all claim that their store managers “primary duty” is management and they qualify as “executives” under the exemption. In the only case tried to a verdict thus far, which was Family Dollar, the jury rejected the company’s “executive” defense. Our Dee Miles along with Jere Beasley and Roman Shaul, represent all of the Plaintiffs in the remaining cases against Dollar General and Fred’s.FLSA Cases we are currently pursuing:

What can I do?

We enjoy a distinct national reputation for excellence in the area of consumer fraud litigation. This litigation includes individual cases as well as class actions that have been filed throughout the country. Most of the cases involve wrongful conduct of insurance and finance companies including fraud and bad faith. We are also a national leader in the fight against mandatory binding arbitration in consumer contracts.

If you or a loved one has become a victim of consumer fraud, you may be entitled to compensation. For a free legal consultation, contact us today!

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Beasley Allen is one of the most professional organizations I have ever had the pleasure of working with. They are respectful, understanding, efficient, and above all compassionate. They take the best care of their clients in every way possible. They keep us informed and aware of things involved in their clients cases. Their counsel is stellar in the industry. I would highly recommend them to others in their time of need and I have done so.